Goodreads helps you keep track of books you want to read.

Start by marking “In Other Words” as Want to Read:

Other editions

Enlarge cover

Rate this book

Clear rating

1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

Open Preview

In Other Words

Jhumpa Lahiri,

Ann Goldstein (Translator)

3.69 · Rating details · 10,110 ratings · 1,737 reviews

From the Pulitzer Prize winner, a surprising, powerful, and eloquent nonfiction debut

In Other Words is at heart a love story—of a long and sometimes difficult courtship, and a passion that verges on obsession: that of a writer for another language. For Jhumpa Lahiri, that love was for Italian, which first captivated and capsized her during a trip to Florence after college. ...more

Get A Copy

Hardcover, 233 pages

Published February 9th 2016 by Knopf (first published January 28th 2015)

More Details... Edit Details

Friend Reviews

To see what your friends thought of this book, please sign up.

Reader Q&A

To ask other readers questions about In Other Words, please sign up.

Lists with This Book

Voices from Chernobyl by Svetlana Alexievich

The Unwomanly Face of War by Svetlana Alexievich

The Day Nina Simone Stopped Singing by Darina Al-Joundi

Translated Non-Fiction by Women Authors

164 books — 17 voters

Living with a Dead Language by Ann Patty

Urdu Script Primer for Non-Urdu Speakers by Alexander Rediger

Books about learning a language

14 books — 11 voters

More lists with this book...

Community Reviews

Showing 1-30

Average rating 3.69 ·

Rating details

· 10,110 ratings · 1,737 reviews

More filters

Sort order

Start your review of In Other Words

Jun 25, 2016 Ahmad Sharabiani rated it really liked it

Shelves: biography, 21th-century, non-fiction, memoir, italian, culture, language

In Altre Parole = In Other Words, Jhumpa Lahiri

From the Pulitzer Prize winner, a surprising, powerful and eloquent non-fiction debut. In Other Words is at heart a love story--of a long and sometimes difficult courtship, and a passion that verges on obsession: that of a writer for another language. For Jhumpa Lahiri, that love was for Italian, which first captivated and capsized her during a trip to Florence after college. And although Lahiri studied Italian for many years afterward, true mastery In Altre Parole = In Other Words, Jhumpa Lahiri

From the Pulitzer Prize winner, a surprising, powerful and eloquent non-fiction debut. In Other Words is at heart a love story--of a long and sometimes difficult courtship, and a passion that verges on obsession: that of a writer for another language. For Jhumpa Lahiri, that love was for Italian, which first captivated and capsized her during a trip to Florence after college. And although Lahiri studied Italian for many years afterward, true mastery had always eluded her. So in 2012, seeking full immersion, she decided to move to Rome with her family, for "a trial by fire, a sort of baptism" into a new language and world.

عنوانها: «به عبارت دیگر»؛ «به دیگر سخن»؛ نویسنده: جومپا لاهیری؛ انتشاراتیها (ماهی؛ کوله پشتی، چشمه)؛ تاریخ نخستین خوانش روز چهاردهم ماه نوامبر سال 2016میلادی

عنوان: به عبارت دیگر؛ نویسنده: جومپا لاهیری؛ مترجم: امیرمهدی حقیقت؛ تهران، ماهی، 1395؛ در 140ص؛ شابک 9789642092727؛ موضوع فراگیری زبان ایتالیائی و سرگذشتنامه از نویسندگان امریکایی - سده 21م

عنوان: به دیگر سخن؛ نویسنده: جومپا لاهیری؛ مترجم: معصومه عسکری؛ تهران، کوله پشتی، 1395؛ در 160ص؛ شابک 9786008211082؛

عنوان: به عبارت دیگر؛ نویسنده: جومپا لاهیری؛ مترجم: محیا بیات؛ تهران، چشمه، 1395؛ در 99ص؛ شابک 9786002296764؛

لاهیری اهل «بنگال» هستند؛ در «امریکا» به دنیا آمده اند، و زبان انگلیسی آموخته اند، زندگی کرده اند، و کتاب‌های خودشان را به زبان انگلیسی بنوشته اند؛ کتاب با روایتی عاشقانه، از علاقه‌ ی عجیب «لاهیری» به زبان «ایتالیایی»، پرده برمیدارند، و خوانشگران در سیر و سلوک، و سفری عاشقانه با خیال ایشان، همراه می‌شوند؛ شاید هم ایشان نیز به دنبال هویت خویش میگردند

تاریخ بهنگام رسانی 07/09/1399هجری خورشیدی؛ ا. شربیانی ...more

flag 184 likes · Like · see review

Jan 26, 2017 Brina rated it really liked it

Shelves: india, memoirs, writing-life

Jhumpa Lahiri first entered the literary fiction scene with her Pulitzer Prize winning Interpreter of Maladies in 2000. A collection of short stories set in India and the United States, Maladies tugged at the reader's heartstrings. Since Maladies, Lahiri has gone on to write three full length novels. Yet, while grappling whether to set her stories in the United States or India, Lahiri set off to learn an additional language: Italian. In Other Words written entirely in Italian while living in Ita Jhumpa Lahiri first entered the literary fiction scene with her Pulitzer Prize winning Interpreter of Maladies in 2000. A collection of short stories set in India and the United States, Maladies tugged at the reader's heartstrings. Since Maladies, Lahiri has gone on to write three full length novels. Yet, while grappling whether to set her stories in the United States or India, Lahiri set off to learn an additional language: Italian. In Other Words written entirely in Italian while living in Italy is Lahiri's first work of nonfiction.

Growing up the daughter of immigrant parents, Lahiri's first language was Bengali. Hearing this language exclusively until she started school, Lahiri refers to Bengali as her mother tongue even though she never writes in it. Upon entering school, she grew aware that her classmates and their parents only read, wrote, and spoke English, and Lahiri grew conscious of the fact that her parents were different. As soon as she mastered English, Lahiri shed Bengali in all facets of her life other than her home. Yet, being her mother tongue, she can not fully abandon it.

At age twenty five while working on a PhD in seventeenth century English, Lahiri decided to learn a third language: Italian. She began a twenty year journey where she set out to speak Italian as well as her two parent languages. Even after being recognized as a successful English language writer, Lahiri desired the challenge of immersing herself in Italian. Following the publication of her most recent novel, she packed up her family and moved from New York to Rome.

I give Lahiri much credit for moving to another country voluntarily. As someone who has learned new languages as both a child and an adult, I know first hand how difficult it can be to learn a new language system while already set in one's ways. Yet, Lahiri lived in Rome for three years. With the aid of a dictionary, notebook, and a network of peers, she transitioned to reading and writing exclusively in Italian. In Other Words is a collection of her diary entries about her relationship with the Italian language and written in Italian. The first readers of this book were Italian speakers, allowing a new group of people to read Lahiri's outstanding prose. The English version of this work is actually bilingual side by side in English and Italian. Lahiri did not translate the book herself because of her desire for her words to remain in Italian rather than English.

Following the publication of this work, Lahiri and her family returned to New York. She is unsure of the language her next book will be written in just as she is unsure how she will maintain her Italian now that she lives out of the country. Regardless of the language of her forthcoming books, Lahiri is a gifted writer, one of the outstanding novelists of this generation. The fact that she went outside of her comfort zone only adds to her brilliance as an author. A short work of nonfiction, I rate In Other Words 4 stars, only because I wished it could have been longer so I could have spent all the more time with Jhumpa Lahiri's prose. ...more

flag 138 likes · Like · see review

Nov 04, 2015 Elyse Walters rated it it was amazing

Shelves: netgalley

'Holy-cow- snoopy- lupi- fluky'!!! I had 'no' idea what Lahiri
was up to since reading "Lowland", having just finished it days ago.
A bombshell just dropped from the heavens!!!

The writing is gorgeous - and intimate. I'm incredibly inspired......a little sad...( yet I'm not sure 'who' I'm sad for). Mostly, Jhumpa Lahiri rocked my boat & razzle-dazzled me!

Jhumpa Lahiri literally turned her life upside down & inside out....taking her family with her. This is a woman who is not afraid to feel 'fea ...more

flag 106 likes · Like · see review

Jul 29, 2017 Fionnuala added it

Shelves: echoes, 2017

The most interesting character in Jhumpa Lahiri’s The Namesake is a young woman whose parents emigrated to Boston from Bengal. She speaks two languages, English and Bengali, and when she decides to study a third at university, she chooses French. Moushumi, we are told in the novel, approached French, unlike American or Indian, without guilt, or misgiving, or expectation of any kind. It was easier to turn her back on the two countries that could claim her in favour of one that had no claim whatso ...more

flag 81 likes · Like · see review

Nov 11, 2015 Julie Christine rated it it was amazing

Shelves: best-of-2016, social-political-commentary, bio-autobio-memoir, italy-theme-setting, read-2016, shorts, travel-narrative, writing-companions

I realize that the wish to write in a new language derives from a kind of desperation. I feel tormented, just like Verga’s songbird. Like her, I wish for something else — something that I probably shouldn’t wish for. But I think that the need to write always comes from desperation, along with hope. Jhumpa Lahiri

Twenty-one summers ago I was finishing up one graduate degree in International Affairs and preparing to start a second one in Linguistics, moving from an inquiry into the effects women's I realize that the wish to write in a new language derives from a kind of desperation. I feel tormented, just like Verga’s songbird. Like her, I wish for something else — something that I probably shouldn’t wish for. But I think that the need to write always comes from desperation, along with hope. Jhumpa Lahiri

Twenty-one summers ago I was finishing up one graduate degree in International Affairs and preparing to start a second one in Linguistics, moving from an inquiry into the effects women's levels of education in the developing world had on household income, birth rates and infant mortality, into an examination of how language affects our creativity. I intended to pursue a Ph.D in Linguistics and was mulling over a dissertation on expatriate writers in France who wrote in their adopted language. I planned to explore how writing in French had changed their approach the language of their stories, how this second, or some cases, third or fourth language, influenced the content and rhythm and expression of their thoughts.

Then I was offered a job, a great job, in my first field. I pondered the inherent financial and professional insecurities of a life in academe and I turned from the Ph.D path, away from Linguistics.

Oh, the irony as twenty years later I try to make a living as a writer, having turned from the path of financial and professional security and stability because it wasn't a life authentic to me. If someday I achieve a measure of commercial success, I will relocate lock, stock and barrel to France, where I can immerse wholesale into a language and culture that fills and sustains my heart and intellect.

Along comes Jhumpa Lahiri with In Other Words, a luminous meditation on how immersion in another language changes a writer's soul. In this evocative and earnest collection of brief essays on learning to express herself in Italian, Lahiri touches on everything I felt to be true or what I have experienced with equal intensity living in France and living in the French language: the daily intoxication and despair, the loss and discovery of self, the intimacy and estrangement that come with linguistic and cultural displacement.

This is not a book on what it's like to live in Italy. It is not a travelogue, a glimpse into a place any of us fortunate enough to have traveled there or who dream of going can mine for memories or tips. It could be set in Poland or Peru. This is a memoir of the mind of a writer who finds herself humbled by language. Lahiri writes of her first experiences crafting a story in Italian, “I’ve never tried to do anything this demanding as a writer. I find that my project is so arduous that it seems sadistic. I have to start again from the beginning, as if I had never written anything in my life. But, to be precise, I am not at the starting point: rather, I’m in another dimension, where I have no references, no armor. Where I’ve never felt so stupid.”

I am reminded as I savor these hesitant, glorious essays that my instincts two decades ago were right. Even then, so many years before I began writing, I understood the metamorphic potential that profound engagement with another language held for a writer. In Other Words has given me reason to take up that dream again, this time not at a scholarly remove, examining other writers' lives and work, but as a way to enhance my own. ...more

flag 81 likes · Like · see review

Nov 15, 2015 Iris P rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: 2016-favorites, non-fiction, language, essays, memoirs-autobiographies

In Other Words

Jhumpa Lahiri was born Nilanjana Sudeshna to Bengali Indian immigrants in London, she and her family moved to the United States when she was three years old

"Here was a woman, a translator, who wanted to be another person. There was no precise reason. It had always been that way. She considered herself imperfect, like the first draft of a book. She wanted to produce another version of herself, in the same way that she could transform a text from one language into another."
Fr ...more

flag 73 likes · Like · see review

Jul 13, 2019 Warwick rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: memoir, languages, italian

Jhumpa Lahiri won a shedload of prizes and acclaim for her first three books, but in 2012, after writing The Lowland, she took a strange and drastic decision: to abandon the English language altogether. And this was not a case of returning to a smaller, more ‘authentic’ first language, like Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o's rejection of English in favour of Kikuyu – no, Lahiri decided henceforth to immerse herself, as reader and writer, in Italian, a language of which she was no more than a student.

So complet Jhumpa Lahiri won a shedload of prizes and acclaim for her first three books, but in 2012, after writing The Lowland, she took a strange and drastic decision: to abandon the English language altogether. And this was not a case of returning to a smaller, more ‘authentic’ first language, like Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o's rejection of English in favour of Kikuyu – no, Lahiri decided henceforth to immerse herself, as reader and writer, in Italian, a language of which she was no more than a student.

So complete was this rinuncia ufficiale, this ‘official renunciation’, that she would not even consent to do the English translation of this book (which she wrote in Italian), wishing, she says, to protect her new language from any contamination or inferiority complex that might arise from suddenly being able to flex her muscles in a more familiar idiom. Instead, Ann Goldstein, Elena Ferrante's translator, has rendered Lahiri's careful, clear Italian into a similarly clean English, with the two languages presented on facing pages.

I'll say straight off that I think Lahiri is crazy – but it's the kind of crazy you can only salute in admiration. And she writes very well about the allure of a foreign language, the way that acquiring fluency can become an all-consuming passion – the endless wordlists, so carefully put together from conversational faux-pas and misunderstood newspaper headlines, studied and forgotten in a hundred notebooks, so that you end up adding the same piece of vocabulary two or more times without ever remembering it. ‘I don't think my project is a waste of time,’ she says, zealously. ‘I know that its beauty lies in the act of gathering, not in the result.’

As someone who does this exercise regularly (today I looked up geeignet for what my notebook tells me is the third time), I would certainly like to believe this. And few who try to immerse themselves in a foreign language will fail to recognise Lahiri's struggle to get a grip on her extensive but eccentric vocabulary – ‘I feel as if I were dressed in an outlandish manner,’ she says, ‘wearing a long, elegant skirt of another era, a T-shirt, a straw hat, and slippers.’ She's also very perceptive on the way that reading literature in a foreign language forces you into a particular kind of close reading, which can feel incredibly productive and intimate:

When I read in Italian, I'm a more active reader, more involved, even if less skilled. I like the effort. I prefer the limitations. I know that in some way my ignorance is useful to me.

It may well be useful to her as a reader, but the question is whether it's useful to her as a writer. Immersing yourself in learning a language is one thing – turning your back on the language of your profession is something else. Lahiri clearly feels that writing in Italian is a discipline which helps her familiarise herself with the language, which is surely true…but what do her readers get out of it?

A couple of short stories inserted in the narrative here suggest that the answer may be ‘not a huge amount’, though it seems very ungenerous to say so. One would like her to succeed, and in an abstract sense the benefits of this technique are already established: think of Beckett writing in French ‘to avoid having a style’, as he said – or Nabokov, who switched to English with the opposite result, generating about the most ferocious style in English letters.

Maybe Lahiri will reach this point too, but at the moment she's in a curious no-man's-land – as evidenced by her afterword, which reveals that the Italian text of this book was revised first by her Italian teacher, then by two Italian writer friends of hers, and fourthly by the editor of the magazine in which the essays first appeared. Having left English behind but not yet secure on Italian shores, Lahiri is, she says, not even an exile: Sono esiliata perfino dalla definizione di esilio ‘I am exiled even from the definition of exile.’

Clearly, confining herself to Italian is hugely creatively inspiring for her right now. But whatever happens with her fiction, this particular kind of book – which reflects on the status of language, and translation, and how personality and style intersect with these – is the perfect text to be written in a not-quite-fluent language, and to be read in translation. The form matches the function. I wish more of these books existed, and I'm delighted that Jhumpa Lahiri has written such a moving example of one. She says she might never go back to English, and reading this, you kind of hope she won't need to. ...more

flag 51 likes · Like · see review

Sep 20, 2017 Kalliope rated it liked it

Shelves: languages, 21-century, fiction-italian, medieval, italy, 2017, translation, travel

When I finished this book, I immediately wondered if Jhumpa Lahiri’s next novel would be in Italian.

What a funny idea to come up with a full book solely engaged with her reasoning for wanting to learn Italian and her experiences while doing it. Granted, wanting to learn Italian on my part is why I decided to read it. The bilingual set up, (view spoiler), attracted me. I saw it as another learning tool in which the English version would be, lazily, my safety net.

This account felt entertaining at times, infuriating at others. Reading a parallel process to mine was like comparing notes with a friend and, therefore, enjoyable. But something that ought not to have taken much longer than a conversation over a mid afternoon coffee, even if lengthened by eating some Torte alle fragole along with the drinking, was given too much of a presence. This is after all trivia embodied in an object as magical as a book. And, consequently Lahiri irritates with her self-importance. How many people out there have had to learn and function, most often traumatically, another language?

I agree then with other readers in that, had this not been written by a price-winning, popular writer, no editor would have dreamed of publishing it.

Her account failed me to impress me too. Before she moved to Rome to get a final grip on Italian, she had already been learning it for twenty years (!). So, what is the big deal? Instead, I was more interested in her complex relationship to Bengali, the language of her forebears, which she ended up rejecting it.

As for her Italian, it was good for me to read her essay because its language is simple. I had started already a novel by an Italian writer, but I have put it aside because it is still too difficult for me. While with Lahiri’s short, well-balanced and carefully written sentences I could advance in my reading without recourse to the English safety net. Her Italian writing however has no beauty as it retains the tone of restraint found in textbooks. Hers is self-consciousness stepping along with words, one at a time, without falling, successively, and with periodic halts, where there is no flowing allure.

At least, not until the last chapter. With Penombra (Half-Light) I saw her writing in Italian take off, timidly.

Will it fly? ...more

flag 50 likes · Like · see review

Mar 10, 2017 Cheryl rated it really liked it

Shelves: non-fiction, memoirs, fav-authors, on-writing

lingua come una marea, ora un'inondazione, ora bassa, inaccessibile

There are two writers whose stories are similar to stories I'd aspire to write: Jhumpa Lahiri and Chimamanda Adichie. They write about the immigrant experience, of characters who have overcome obstacles, of those who strive to simply find some soupçon of success in foreign lands. Writers like Lahiri reveal the immigrant's challenges and successes with assimilation in new cultures. So of course it was a delight to read the autobio lingua come una marea, ora un'inondazione, ora bassa, inaccessibile

There are two writers whose stories are similar to stories I'd aspire to write: Jhumpa Lahiri and Chimamanda Adichie. They write about the immigrant experience, of characters who have overcome obstacles, of those who strive to simply find some soupçon of success in foreign lands. Writers like Lahiri reveal the immigrant's challenges and successes with assimilation in new cultures. So of course it was a delight to read the autobiographical account of her own challenges in Rome, Italy, as she tries to write and speak a new language:

Just as a word can have many dimensions, many nuances, great complexity, so, too, can a person, a life. Language is the mirror, the principal metaphor. Because ultimately the meaning of a word, like that of a person, is boundless, ineffable.

Lahiri did not live in the Calcutta she writes about in her fiction and even though some insist her stories are nonfictional, she explains that she is a woman who has created stories and characters from her imagination, though using the homeland of her parents. In this memoir, the reader finally gets a glimpse of the woman behind the desk, the writer who seeks herself in books and language. There is something exhilarating about languages and cultures, and this contemplative memoir emphasizes this while also showcases a woman's struggle with identity and search for homeland:

Without a homeland and without a true mother tongue, I wander the world, even at my desk. In the end I realize that it wasn't a true exile: far from it. I am exiled even from the definition of exile.

Why would someone live in a country for a year, sense a language, study the language for over a decade? And why would an American writer choose to write a book in Italian? More importantly, why would a fiction writer decide to embrace the world of nonfiction? These are the questions I had as I read this memoir, for Lahiri's reflections certainly resonate with this immigrant reader who has also considered finding placement through language. Although in some instances one senses the hesitations of the novice nonfiction writer afraid to unmask privacy, this memoir about possibility and triumph, about the writing craft and language discovery, is written in the same gorgeous, simple layered style that comprise Lahiri's oeuvre (Now onto my fourth read of hers: The Namesake ). ...more

flag 43 likes · Like · see review

Jan 28, 2016 Chihoe Ho rated it did not like it · review of another edition

Where was the romance in learning a new language? I didn't think I'd be asking this question constantly while reading "In Other Words," and as much as I love Jhumpa Lahiri and her past works, this was a sorely disappointing bore.

So, talk about talking in circles! "In Other Words" felt like the same point presented in various ways, ways in which Lahiri flexed and improved upon her Italian fluency. Maybe it reads better in that language than English and was lost in translation, or maybe the very s ...more

flag 41 likes · Like · see review

Jan 28, 2016 Jill rated it really liked it

This is a love story.

But it’s not a traditional love story. It’s the story of a Pulitzer-prize winning author – Jhumpa Lahiri – who fell in love with the Italian language.

I need to stop and own up to my biases going in to this book. My initial feeling, after hearing that Ms. Lahiri was going to write a book in Italian, translated not by herself but by Ann Goldstein, struck me as enormously self-indulgent. Worse, I felt almost betrayed; I loved Jhumpa Lahiri’s short stories and hated that she no ...more

flag 37 likes · Like · see review

Jan 04, 2019 Diane rated it liked it

Shelves: writers-on-writing, audiobooks

This is a lovely memoir about Jhumpa Lahiri's obsession with learning Italian. She's been studying it for years, immersing herself in Italian lessons and culture, and this book is a collection of stories about her experiences. The book itself is printed in both English and Italian, which is a nice benefit to others interested in learning the language.

"In Other Words" is a very personal story, and fans of Lahiri's novels may appreciate this glimpse into the author's real life. Recommended.

Meaning ...more

flag 38 likes · Like · see review

Mar 17, 2016 Louise rated it it was amazing

Shelves: pulitzer-prize-winning-author, language-studies, italy

I'm an administrator in a language school. Every year I see hundreds of people struggling just as Jhumpa Lahiri describes with a new language. Most our students come from abroad to immerse themselves in English, but many are US citizens, serious about learning (last year alone) Chinese, Hebrew, Hindi, Indonesian, Japanese, Korean, Spanish, Russian, Tagalog, Thai or Urdu.

Lahiri writes of the process: the tutors, the notebooks, the problem with propositions and tenses, making mistakes, misinterpr I'm an administrator in a language school. Every year I see hundreds of people struggling just as Jhumpa Lahiri describes with a new language. Most our students come from abroad to immerse themselves in English, but many are US citizens, serious about learning (last year alone) Chinese, Hebrew, Hindi, Indonesian, Japanese, Korean, Spanish, Russian, Tagalog, Thai or Urdu.

Lahiri writes of the process: the tutors, the notebooks, the problem with propositions and tenses, making mistakes, misinterpreting and more. Although a serious and passionate student progress was not linear, nor always forward. After 20 years of struggling, she moved... she moved her entire family ... to Italy, and there came the breakthrough.

The author's language journey is unusual. She is a gifted and prize winning author (in English), and very familiar with the texture and structure of language. Her native tongue is arguably English, although Bengali was her actual first language. Her decision to learn Italian resulted from a trip to Florence; Why? She cannot explain it, but she accepts that Italian fluency is her passionate goal.

Learning a language means learning a culture. It is a whole new way of thinking. It can be exhausting and exhilarating. Lahiri bears her soul on its very personal elements.

Lahiri wrote this book in Italian which appears on the left page with the English translation (by Ann Goldman, translator of Elena Ferrante, Primo Levi and Giacomo Leopardi to name a few) on the right. The translation is straightforward making it possible for those with a rudimentary knowledge of Italian to test their skills. Through the translation, you can see charm in the level of nuance attained by a high level second language learner.

Lahiri plans to write more in Italian (which would never be a marketer's choice) and I hope we, the English reading public, will not have to wait for their translations to appear.

This book is not for everyone. Those who have, as adults, studied a language (not for college credit, but to use it) or have friends or family in the process, particularly if Italian is either L1 or L2 (as we refer to languages in my profession) will appreciate this book. ...more

flag 35 likes · Like · see review

Mar 05, 2018 Mariah Roze rated it liked it

I read this book for the Goodreads' book club Diversity in All Forms! If you would like to participate in the discussion here is the link: https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

This book is all about the author's love for learning the language of Italian and everything she did to make that happen. She moved to Italy and wrote this book in Italian. (I read the English version).

This book had some interesting points, but probably should have ended a lot sooner. It seemed the author didn't have m ...more

flag 29 likes · Like · see review

Sep 22, 2019 Maxwell rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: non-fiction, translated, owned

I really admire Lahiri's commitment to writing in Italian, and this was a fascinating exercise in and examination of testing one's ability to adopt a new language. Her metaphors are illuminating and helpful guides to better understand her interior state while working through the difficulties of learning said new language. Now I'm eager to read the (hopefully) eventual translation of her first novel written fully in Italian! ...more

flag 29 likes · Like · see review

Jan 15, 2017 Margaret rated it really liked it

My initial contact with this book of Lahiri’s came when I read “Teach Yourself Italian,” her article in the December 7, 2015 copy of The New Yorker. That article contained early versions of four of the twenty-four chapters that are contained in In Other Words. The article completely captivated me. I had already known that Lahiri was interested in learning Italian, but the depths of the process had never been so completely clarified. For me, reading that article, the real news was the final line My initial contact with this book of Lahiri’s came when I read “Teach Yourself Italian,” her article in the December 7, 2015 copy of The New Yorker. That article contained early versions of four of the twenty-four chapters that are contained in In Other Words. The article completely captivated me. I had already known that Lahiri was interested in learning Italian, but the depths of the process had never been so completely clarified. For me, reading that article, the real news was the final line: (Translated, from the Italian, by Ann Goldstein). Even though I knew she had been learning Italian, I hadn’t realized until that line that she had written this entire piece that I was reading in Italian. I bought the book when a whole stack of them, marked “Signed First Edition,” appeared at my local indie bookstore. I had to have it.

My first reaction was emotional. Lahiri had been one of my favorite writers in English, and now she was writing in Italian. That meant I would be reading Ann Goldstein’s version of Lahiri’s Italian, which according to Lahiri had “rougher edges” than her English. She felt she needed to maintain her then two-year long discipline of reading and writing only in Italian. I felt I would be losing the gorgeous language of one of my favorites. I was both pleased for her and sorry for myself. Would there be no future Interpreter of Maladies, the book I first loved, the book I bought copy after copy to give away to friends? I wasn’t at all sure.

In Other Words itself is printed in a dual language edition: the verso side is in Lahiri’s Italian, the recto is in Goldstein’s English. Unable to read Italian, I read Goldstein. (I did look back and forth, wondering if I could learn a few things about Italian if I matched sentence for sentence all the way through. I didn’t do that, although I couldn’t help noting how many more “i”s there are in Italian than there are in English.) The book has twenty-four short chapters, and because 115 of the 230 pages are original text and the other 115 are translation, those chapters are very short indeed. The book is a memoir, a record of an accomplishment, a story about discipline but mostly about how it feels to live inside a language one barely knows and how it feels to struggle for and then attain mastery. In addition, Lahiri includes “The Exchange,” the first short story she wrote and published in Italian.

Rather than make a clear structure (it is roughly chronological) or argument, this book operates more like a gathering of poems, a collection of different metaphors explaining what it is like to learn a new language. The opening chapter of the book is “The Crossing,” where she writes of speaking a language as being like swimming across a lake. Her own Italian skills allow her only to swim in the shallow water, keeping close to the shore. She sees others excel while she is timid. In the chapter “Venice,” she writes that the topography gives her another key to understanding her acquisition of Italian: English is like the water in the canals and Italian is like the many bridges over the canals. “Writing in another language resembles a journey of” (97) constantly crossing bridges. Her journey across those bridges is fraught with inconvenience, change, and disorientation. She could survive by going into English, but she is determined to build those bridges and accustom herself to those roundabout routes. In the very next chapter (“The Hairy Adolescent”), she describes her Italian as an innocent baby, while her English is “like a hairy, smelly teenager” (119). She wants that teenager not to disturb the baby and keep it from developing into “a carefree, strong independent kid” (119) like her English is.

The book continues in that vein: metaphor after metaphor. Each was interesting while I was reading, but I did want to say to Lahiri, okay, okay, I get it. Even so, she is still a fine thinker and writer. I’m beginning to think I’ll be okay if she keeps writing in Italian. The book ends with an afterword that is fascinating. In it she compares herself to Matisse, who later in life left paint and took up paper-cutting. Of course, he had no choice as he could no longer paint. She chose to change. And then she contrasts this book to her others: this one is the one rooted in her own life; in all her others, she “wrote in order to conceal [her]self” (215). I found this whole discussion interesting and valuable. And then she gives a hint that she has not yet decided to continue to write in Italian. She writes, “I think that my new language, more limited, more immature, gives me a more extensive, more adult gaze. That’s the reason I continue, for now, to write in Italian” (215). I underlined that “for now” in my copy of the book. And in the very last section she writes that she is leaving Rome and returning to America. She doesn’t know what will happen to her Italian once she is back. When I finished reading, I went online and discovered that Lahiri is now living in Princeton, NJ, where she is a professor in their Creative Writing Program. So she is back swimming in those English canals. Whatever she writes next, I’m likely to be back at my bookstore, buying the first edition.
...more

flag 23 likes · Like · see review

Jan 28, 2016 Toni rated it really liked it

Shelves: audiobook

My review has been Updated Mar 8, 2016; To include comments on the audio. This was a perplexing book from a favorite author of mine. She had a love affair with the Italian language! Not so much the people, the country, the food (mama Mia ), but the language. Okay that's fine. She wanted to immerse herself in it. Learn it, absorb it, think and dream in it, as if she was born to it. She became a woman obsessed with this task. So she AND her family MOVED to Italy for 2 years so she could accomplish My review has been Updated Mar 8, 2016; To include comments on the audio. This was a perplexing book from a favorite author of mine. She had a love affair with the Italian language! Not so much the people, the country, the food (mama Mia ), but the language. Okay that's fine. She wanted to immerse herself in it. Learn it, absorb it, think and dream in it, as if she was born to it. She became a woman obsessed with this task. So she AND her family MOVED to Italy for 2 years so she could accomplish this task. She did it. This is her resulting book. She can check the item off her list. Why you ask? Well, I don't think she's really sure of that answer, but you should definitely read this book. Maybe you can help her out with that.
Update: Audiobook Review:
I wanted to get a better perspective and understanding of why Ms. Lahiri would embark on such an incredible move to Rome, uprooting herself and her family, to learn the Italian language. I get that total immersion in the country is the best way to secure success; but why would an already respected, successful author do this? I wanted to know more, I wanted to hear it in her own voice. I could write pages after listening, but I'll summarize.
First, I've never heard Ms. Lahiri speak before other than reading her books, her voice is pleasant but I was shocked to hear no emotion. Correct, no emotion, no inflections in anything she read. She spoke perfectly, both in English and Italian, but in monotone.
She is and was determined by one goal only, to learn to speak and write in Italian, perfectly. She is a perfectionist, she will admit this. While I heard intelligence I also heard naïveté. Especially when she spoke of Venice. And, in her afterword she almost sounds or feels guilty for her endeavor to write in Italian. She still was uncertain.
Lastly, to one who heard Italian spoken since birth, what was missing for me was PASSION. Italians say everything with feeling and passion; whether speaking of an opera or yesterday's garbage. Also she says nothing about the incredible country she's living in. Nothing about it's people, culture, food, landscape. She's in Rome! One cannot really learn Italian without feeling it. That's impossible, that's simply technical study. Ok
Finally, the only emotion I heard was when she was defending her books and why she writes. And rightly so. Ms. Lahiri my advice to you, (I'm much older), be proud of your achievements, but please take the time to enjoy yourself and your family. Be easier on yourself my dear. Have some wine and relax. All the best. Ciao. A salude. ...more

flag 23 likes · Like · see review

Feb 29, 2016 Elizabeth rated it it was ok

Others have referred to this book as describing Lahiri’s love affair with Italian, but I sometimes wondered if it wasn’t more of a “fatal attraction” level of obsession. I found the book oddly devoid of joy and completely lacking in humor. Her experience of the Italian language feels very interior and isolated. It’s geared to learning more about herself rather than connecting to other people. She writes of wanting to be understood, but not of understanding. There were moments when I seriously th Others have referred to this book as describing Lahiri’s love affair with Italian, but I sometimes wondered if it wasn’t more of a “fatal attraction” level of obsession. I found the book oddly devoid of joy and completely lacking in humor. Her experience of the Italian language feels very interior and isolated. It’s geared to learning more about herself rather than connecting to other people. She writes of wanting to be understood, but not of understanding. There were moments when I seriously thought she’d benefit by reallocating some of her time to a therapist or life coach to understand why she sees herself as so very different from literally everyone else – and why she never seems to miss an opportunity to feel offended or belittled (her reaction to being greeted in English by shopkeepers had my eyes rolling – this happens to me in Italy, too, Jhumpa, and I look much more Italian than you do! Just smile and say “Preferisco parlare in italiano, per favore.” Believe me, to make a sale, they will.)

Fundamentally, I find Lahiri's obsession with the linguistic dichotomy of her upbringing overwrought: many other people have experienced that duality without feeling themselves to be “void” of an “origin.” [My own experience is not exactly parallel to hers, as my parents did not insist I speak their Italian dialect at home. But I had friends whose parents did.] As Lahiri writes at one point, “Because of my divided identity, or perhaps by disposition, I consider myself an incomplete person, in some way deficient.” This reminds me that for years I used to blame certain things I didn’t like about myself on my parents and my upbringing – until I saw my brother and his wife being exactly the kind of parents I thought I wished for and yet their daughter (my niece) still demonstrated some of the insecurities and hesitations that have dogged my life. Some things are just innate.

Despite these negative reactions (and a few more I could cite), I enjoyed the first chapters of the book quite a bit. As the book wore on, however, I found it repetitive, and the analogies increasingly more labored and less profound than the author seemed to think they were. A 2.5 experience overall. 

For those who have access to subscription-only content at the New York Review of Books website, I recommend this review by Tim Parks, someone who truly knows how to enjoy Italy and the Italian language while also being a “serious person.” http://www.nybooks.com/articles/2016/...
...more

flag 20 likes · Like · see review

Mar 12, 2018 Khush rated it it was amazing

'In Other Words' is a kind of book that I love reading. It is a deep meditation on words, life, literature, and being in the world. She wrote this book in Italian. On each left page is the Italian text, and on the corresponding right page is the English translation. Any English speaking person who loves Italian, such a book might be an immense source of delight. One can read two books in one.

The book almost feels like a shimmering river flowing in its full glory. Since I knew that the English tr
'In Other Words' is a kind of book that I love reading. It is a deep meditation on words, life, literature, and being in the world. She wrote this book in Italian. On each left page is the Italian text, and on the corresponding right page is the English translation. Any English speaking person who loves Italian, such a book might be an immense source of delight. One can read two books in one.

The book almost feels like a shimmering river flowing in its full glory. Since I knew that the English translation is done by someone else (this would be curious if Jhumpa has done it herself), I wondered how can someone learn another language so late in life, and yet could write profoundly. It feels more like an achievement because, for a writer like her, she could just have stick to her native English. Since she chose to write in Italian, it shows her commitment and passion toward the Italian language.

There are things about writers from the non-European backgrounds (or let us say non-white) especially in regard to the English language that always chase them. Of course, it is an extremely legitimate area of inquiry, however, when it comes to authors like Salman Rushdie, Jhumpa Lahiri, Vikram Seth, Arundhati Roy and many others, these questions expose the one who poses them. Such enquires become meaningless because these authors not only own the English language, they add newer meanings where none existed before. So I find this annoying and also hilarious when unreflecting people (critics) talk about such authors in terms of native, non -native, first- second language and so forth as if being native is the only qualification one requires to write well, to write literature.

Further in the book, for instance, we see how certain stereotypes function in the real world. Lahiri's Italian is far superiors to her husband. Whereas he is often complimented on his excellent Italian, Lahiri rarely attracts appreciation for her knowledge of Italian by ordinary people in Italy. This is due to her skin color which makes Italians 'unsee' her language.

Since I am very much into learning Danish, I see how some of the difficulties one faces while learning languages are the same especially when one wants to learn well. Many a time people assume that their language is the most difficult, and almost impossible, to learn. On such occasions, I wonder how do they arrive at such portentous claims about the worth of their native language. One can only say such a thing if one knows all the languages spoken in the world. Another very interesting, but misleading, pronouncement often made by the non-native speakers of English language that 'English is a simple language' (such people forget that they have been learning it since age six). Yes maybe up to an intermediate level but beyond that, it is not. It is one of the most difficult languages in the world, one only realizes this when it is seriously pursued.

She also talks about themes such as home, alienation, and exile. In fact, these are not the things that happen to particular group or races, these are universal things. However, in the western context, there are whole industries that keep these 'things' – hot, kicking and relevant, but in a very selective manner. For instance, an American family living in Italy remains, by choice, American. An Italian living in the US for ages is eternally an Italian-American; this list of hyphenated identities is long, though selective. We hardly describe Germans, Scandinavians, English in such terms. They are Americans in the way others are not.

However, this book should not be read for its subtle political leanings but for its serious quest for words and meanings. She not only makes an attempt to hold 'words' in her grip, she lets them fly and go into unfamiliar zones of life.

...more

flag 19 likes · Like · see review

Nov 01, 2019 Marc rated it liked it

Shelves: italian-literature, india, english-literature, language, writing, identity

This was my first introduction to the Indian (Bengali) writer Jhumpa Lahiri (° 1967), who has already gained some fame with literature in English. In this book she describes how she made the "crossing" (literally) to Italian, a language that got under her skin for reasons that were at first unclear to her. Her obsession and passion for this new language grew so strong that she actually moved to Italy in 2011 and started writing in Italian. This difficult transition is described in detail and at ...more

flag 19 likes · Like · see review

Jan 27, 2016 Angela rated it liked it

As a former journalist who has studied a foreign language, lived abroad, and spent considerable time in Italy, I enjoyed Jhumpa Lahiri's exploration of the themes of exile and finding a new voice in her writing through another language (in her case, a third). This slim volume, translated from her new-found Italian to English, her language of core competency, reflects the often staccato style of a foreign speaker, which felt repetitive at first. That's forgivable, because Lahiri makes you co-pilo ...more

flag 19 likes · Like · see review

Jan 29, 2016 Seemita rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: india, non-fiction, uk, bio-autobio-memoir, culture, italy, translated

A few months back, I began planning for a vacation to a foreign country, tentatively scheduled for March/ April. This time suited me professionally as my work commitments were a tad less tight. My brother, who generally makes it to these family vacations, was not to make it this time due to his other engagements. The trip was planned and I was all ready to take off. Just a week before I was scheduled to fly, my brother called up and with reference to the trip, asked simply this one question, “Wo A few months back, I began planning for a vacation to a foreign country, tentatively scheduled for March/ April. This time suited me professionally as my work commitments were a tad less tight. My brother, who generally makes it to these family vacations, was not to make it this time due to his other engagements. The trip was planned and I was all ready to take off. Just a week before I was scheduled to fly, my brother called up and with reference to the trip, asked simply this one question, “Would you be able to manage the language there?” I was about to fly to a country where English was hardly spoken in day-to-day life.

Words. Language encircling Words. Dialects categorizing Words. Usage validating Words. There is something about Words. No. Everything is about Words.

The world revolves around communication and the words imparting that communication, veracity or futility. Words can make or break people. Words can as easily make or break nations. A toddler speaks his own words and a soldier speaks his own; why, even a mute speaks his words which we only sometimes get and sometimes, don’t.

I have always opened the gates of my heart to words; a flood of them, incessantly pounding my being, never getting tired of their various forms and sounds. So, when I came across this book, whose blurb read as the journey of a reputed Anglophone writer attempting to write in a new language, Italian, it captivated my interest like a fresh breeze coming from an unknown terrain, holding a luscious, familiar scent in its caress.

I read most of this book when I was on my vacation and it was no coincidence. Reading Lahiri’s struggle with finding an opening into Italian, however inconsequential, was an endearing experience when placed alongside my own, real-life struggles on getting my very basic, trivial requirements past a lady at the supermarket or the gentleman on the ticket counter. Lahiri narrates her painstaking journey with the beginner’s doubts of the worth of the expedition, followed by the intermediate’s apprehensions of the relevance of the exercises and culminated by the advanced’s solace of the fruitfulness of the outcome. Amid keeping diaries and taking notes, conversing with locals and shunning English altogether, she attempts to shed the skin of security that being a well-known writer drapes around the bones. She trounces assertiveness for ignorance; friends for teachers. She even surrenders critique and editing for flow; a flow which alone can anoint her Italian writing with a gravitas worth mentioning.

“My knowledge of English is both an advantage and a hindrance. I rewrite everything like a lunatic until it satisfies me, while in Italian, like a soldier in the desert, I have to simply keep going.”

During my interactions with the locals at my vacation destination, I realized that speaking was so much more difficult than writing. Unlike writing which shields the written words from an immediate onslaught of reactions, thereby providing the writer a reasonably lengthy supportive environment to breathe life into a creation, speaking dismantles all defences by eliciting responses much before even a line has been uttered, sending the speaker into a conscious shell of reconsideration and mild self-reproach. The responses I received, despite being enquiring, and not contemptuous, in nature, decelerated my casual attempts to learn the language. So, I could well imagine the roadblocks, even those not mentioned in this book, that must have rocked Lahiri’s conscious, and most certainly, more vigorous attempts to learn the language.

With help from professionals and locals, libraries and thesauruses, family and friends and above all, self-drive, she slowly finds her feet, adding one word to another, substituting a phrase here and there and manages to write two short stories in Italian (which are included in this book). While the stories are part autobiographical in nature, the fictionalization is rather apparent.

Having reached this stage of her journey, she is suddenly besieged by a terrifying thought; her ambiguity as a native. She bares her bruises to expose a fear, that which freezes the bottom of a ship that leaves a comfortable shore for unknown waters for a short time. The shore does not own up the ship anymore while the waters are aware of the ship’s temporary visit. Where does the ship belong?

“My writing in Italian is, just like a bridge, something constructed, fragile. It might collapse at any moment, leaving me in danger. English flows under my feet. I'm aware of it: an undeniable presence, even if I try to avoid it. Like the water in Venice, it remains the stronger, more natural element, the element that forever threatens to swallow me. Paradoxically, I could survive without any doubt in English; I wouldn’t drown. And yet, because I don’t want any contact with the water, I build bridges.”

Perhaps she may find the answer, just like she found the word – (v.) sondare (to probe, to explore). ...more

flag 86 likes · Like · see review

Feb 28, 2016 Chloe rated it it was ok

Shelves: memoirs-bios, books-in-translation

"I identify with the imperfect [tense] because a sense of imperfection has marked my life."

1.5 stars. This is when I wish that Goodreads would show half stars in their ratings, because as much as I applaud Jhumpa Lahiri for her incredible undertaking, this book lacked serious depth for me. I read two of Lahiri's novels (Interpreter of Maladies and The Namesake) a long time ago and I remember being impressed and taken in by her fiction. Her current attempt to write a memoir, translated from h ...more

flag 13 likes · Like · see review

Feb 18, 2016 Stacey D. rated it it was amazing

Shelves: favorites, foreign-language-reads

A book of exceptional depth and insight. I'm amazed at Lahiri's dedication to Italian, after many years and many arduous attempts at learning the language in America, she uproots her family and moves from Brooklyn to Rome in her desire to become immersed in the language. Self-indulgent? Sure. But then, to write such a deep novel in Italian after only two years of living there! While she states that it is autobiographical, the memoir is thoroughly imbued with her ongoing ambivalence and self-doub ...more

flag 13 likes · Like · see review

Apr 17, 2016 Renate Flynn rated it really liked it

Shelves: italy, language-interests, translated-to-english

I greatly appreciated Jhumpa's (because of the intimacy and vulnerability displayed by the author in this book, I feel that we are on a first-name basis) need in this book to bare her heart and tell the story of wrestling with her identity, the Italian language, and the inter-meshing of the two. It is the best of travel missives; she shares with us and herself (for it often reads as if a journal) her need to be in Italy, her need to only write in Italian, her need to be in Italy in order to disc ...more

flag 13 likes · Like · see review

Apr 01, 2016 Speranza rated it did not like it · review of another edition

Shelves: non-fiction, kindle

Me and Italian language go way back. In fact, ours has become a long-lasting relationship even though I have often neglected him along the way – English has always been of greater use, and then I met German who I had to get close to. Not to forget Bulgarian who was there from the start.

I have love stories with all of the above mentioned languages. And these are some colourful and passionate stories. I could sit down and put them to paper.

But I am not called Jhumpa Lahiri.
Nobody would care. My ...more

flag 18 likes · Like · see review

Feb 09, 2016 Viju rated it liked it

Shelves: between-3-and-4, review-books, read-in-2016, reviewed-in-2016

There was a time in my life, when I was learning Sanskrit in Class 10, I made an effort to write poetry. The decision to write poetry was not because of a sudden discovery of my (non-existent) creative prowess, but it was due to the discovery of a new language to express my thoughts in. I made a conscious effort to get those poems written using my simple and limited vocabulary and despite getting a lot of satisfaction I felt there was something key missing. I was not able to pinpoint what exactl There was a time in my life, when I was learning Sanskrit in Class 10, I made an effort to write poetry. The decision to write poetry was not because of a sudden discovery of my (non-existent) creative prowess, but it was due to the discovery of a new language to express my thoughts in. I made a conscious effort to get those poems written using my simple and limited vocabulary and despite getting a lot of satisfaction I felt there was something key missing. I was not able to pinpoint what exactly was missing till I read Jhumpa Lahiri’s ‘In Other Words’.

A book written by a Pulitzer prize winning author in Italian and translated by someone else into English may usually seem like a marketing gimmick. But in this case, mostly due to the premise of the book, it did make sense for the author to write the book in Italian. Jhumpa via multiple short essays and a few instances of fiction tries to pen down her experience with Italian, from the time she ran into it to the point where she began writing a book in the same language.

There were multiple things that were elucidated in book in wonderful detail and a lot of things are those that people usually face when they pursue a passion that is typically out of their comfort zone. In this case, the handicap of learning a language via a textbook with nothing to practice it or no one to converse with is a challenge that a lot of us face in life. This mostly stems right from school thanks to the multiple languages we read. It is at this juncture that Jhumpa mentions an obvious thing that one needs to get to a point where a language is something that should make you forget your base when you switch to it. That surely is a hard task, but think of this situation: the time taken for a native Hindi speaker to speak in Hindi and the time taken for a non-Hindi speaker to gather his thoughts and translate to Hindi takes a considerably longer time just because he does the thinking in another language. The need for detachment from English arises and in Jhumpa’s case it happened when she moved to Rome and was able to find romance in the reading of the language.

A lot of times a learning of the language, Jhumpa says, is learning the lexicon which includes the words you’ll never ever use in your day-to-day life (Barron’s GRE word lists, anyone?). Just like how a kid tends to draw its first few drawings in a book that no one would ever look at, Jhumpa ‘puts in words in a notebook that no one will read.’ The joy in making the assumption that no one will be interested in going over the playbook, the fear of being judged getting dispelled is what makes it easier. Thus by finding a new voice in rough spots, you find the hidden linguist in you.

There is an instance in the book there the learning of a new language is initially likened to that of addition of a new sibling into the family and the way the person begins to feel about the languages in a maternal way is a beautiful way to put it. If only, one were able to love all languages equally. The book also touches upon the language barrier that Jhumpa has had in the past including her struggle with her identity as an Indian, an American, a Bengali, an English speaker and more. The fact that one’s appearance can be a wall in communication is something the she mentions with a few entertaining anecdotes.

In Other Words, for me, is a book that begins very strongly and is perhaps written in a way to induce the readers interest right from Page 1. However, in the process of getting a little too detailed in her love affair with Italian, Jhumpa tends to derail from the premise in multiple places, and what may read fine as a great standalone essay does not fit into the theme of the book in entirety. The translation is adequate and the ability to relate to the writing, which is usually Jhumpa’s strong point, is definitely present in this book as well. A great effort by the author, but whether this warrants a book with multiple chapters or whether this could have been a longer essay with some pruning is the question.

This book was provided to me as a part of the Flipkart Book Review program. ...more

flag 11 likes · Like · see review

Feb 17, 2016 Washington Post rated it really liked it

Shelves: recently-reviewed

Jhumpa Lahiri lived with her family in Rome in 2012. Though she had studied Italian for 20 years, as part of her “full immersion” into the Italian language, she now kept a kind of philological notebook, full of vocabulary, phrases, rules of grammar... and now we have the memoir, “In Other Words,” which Lahiri, one of the most intellectually elegant novelists in the world, composed in Italian.

Words like “enduring” and “indispensable” should be saved for only the rarest literary achievements, and ...more

flag 11 likes · Like · see review

Jan 04, 2017 Jennifer (Insert Lit Pun) rated it liked it

I really loved almost everything about this book - Lahiri's reflections are somehow both relatable for anyone who's tried to learn a foreign language AND particular to her. She captures how language learning feels like exile and homecoming and failure and renewal, all at once. But I wish there had been even a tiny injection of humor in here. Language learning results in some hilarious miscommunications, but Lahiri was dead set on being more serious than a tombstone. Still, this is a unique book ...more

flag 11 likes · Like · see review

Feb 12, 2016 Resh (The Book Satchel) rated it liked it

In Other Words is Lahiri’s first non fiction book. Jhumpa pens down the story of her decision to master the Italian language after spending a life as the daughter of immigrant Indian parents in America which left her with no sense of belonging to either side. The book is written in Italian and translated into English by Ann Goldstein.

The book takes you on a journey with the writer as she talks about how she developed a fascination for Italian and the reasons for her decision to write in Italian ...more

flag 10 likes · Like · see review

« previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 … next »

new topic
Discuss This Book

topics	posts	views	last activity
Diversity in All ...: In Other Words (February 2018)	4	42	Mar 05, 2018 06:32AM
Around the Year i...: In Other Words, by Jhumpa Lahiri	1	20	May 05, 2016 07:30AM

Readers also enjoyed

See similar books…

Genres

Nonfiction

484 users

Autobiography > Memoir

325 users

Cultural > Italy

116 users

Humanities > Language

98 users

Biography

88 users

European Literature > Italian Literature

73 users

Language > Writing

69 users

Writing > Essays

60 users

Audiobook

43 users

Travel

37 users

See top shelves…

About Jhumpa Lahiri

Jhumpa Lahiri

10,052 followers

Nilanjana Sudeshna "Jhumpa" Lahiri was born in London and brought up in South Kingstown, Rhode Island. Brought up in America by a mother who wanted to raise her children to be Indian, she learned about her Bengali heritage from an early age.

Lahiri graduated from South Kingstown High School and later received her B.A. in English literature from Barnard College in 1989. She then received multiple d ...more

Books by Jhumpa Lahiri

More…

6 Great Books Hitting Shelves This Week

Need another excuse to treat yourself to a new book this week? We've got you covered with the buzziest new releases of the day. To create our...

Trivia About In Other Words

5 trivia questions

More quizzes & trivia...

Quotes from In Other Words

“The more I feel imperfect, the more I feel alive.” — 50 likes

“When the language one identifies with is far away, one does everything possible to keep it alive. Because words bring back everything: the place, the people, the life, the streets, the life, the sky, the flowers, the sounds. When you live without your own language you feel weightless and, at the same time, overloaded. Your breathe another type of air, at a different altitude. You are always aware of the difference.” — 33 likes

More quotes…

See a Problem?

Preview — In Other Words by Jhumpa Lahiri

In Other Words

Get A Copy

Friend Reviews

Reader Q&A

Lists with This Book

Community Reviews

new topic
Discuss This Book

Readers also enjoyed

Genres

About Jhumpa Lahiri

Books by Jhumpa Lahiri

Related Articles

Trivia About In Other Words

Quotes from In Other Words

See a Problem?

Preview — In Other Words by Jhumpa Lahiri

In Other Words

Get A Copy

Friend Reviews

Reader Q&A

Lists with This Book

Community Reviews

new topicDiscuss This Book

Readers also enjoyed

Genres

About Jhumpa Lahiri

Books by Jhumpa Lahiri

Related Articles

Trivia About In Other Words

Quotes from In Other Words

new topic
Discuss This Book